Have You Updated Your Holiday Hours? 🕐

As we gear up for the holidays we want to highlight the importance of updating your special holiday dates on Google My Business and Yelp. Whether you have special hours or are closing, it is so important to let your customers or clients know in advance what your hours will be.

Come Join Us Today at a Few Shop Local Raleigh Events!


This month marks the two year anniversary of the launch of Shop Local Raleigh by the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association – happy birthday, SLR! Join us in celebrating today with two great local events:

Networking Event at Joint Venture Jewelry in Cary
From 4:00pm until 6:00pm, come and enjoy networking, great discussion, and a beverage with other SLR members, volunteers, and local business owners. (Don’t forget those business cards!)

Anniversary Party at Natty Greene’s in Raleigh
Shop Local Raleigh turned “2” on April 15th and to celebrate, we have partnered with NCSU marketing students to plan an Anniversary Party at Natty Greene’s Brewing Co. On April 28th, starting at 7 pm, there will be giveaways, $3 pints of local beer and fun guaranteed for all.

To add to the festivities, we have shared some fun statistics regarding small businesses, public relations, and the return on investment of email marketing, for SLR to use at these events. Along with those “trivia facts”, we’ve also included a special offer for event attendees – so be sure to check out what’s “in store” and “on tap” at these great events tonight. We’ll be back with those special offers here later on the blog, but we didn’t want to spoil the fun by giving them away in advance!

Cheers!

Missed the February Social Media Seminar?

Did you miss the February 2nd Shop Local Raleigh social media seminar? We certainly missed you, but I’ve provided the information shared in that event below so that you can study up on social media and how it positively impact your marketing plans.

Presentation Files:

https://raleighwoodmedia.com/files/slr_marketing_seminar_2011_02_02.ppt (PowerPoint Format)
https://raleighwoodmedia.com/files/slr_marketing_seminar_2011_02_02.pdf (PDF Format)

My friend Greg – facilitator, educator, rhythmatist, Trained HealthRHYTHMS Facilitator, and founder of Shop Local Raleigh member business Drum for Change – asked if I could share these resources with him for an upcoming industry conference. I told him that “I am an open book” and would be happy to share this information as a resource for him and his group and also provided the following “talking points” (below) from the presentation (which I went back and added after the presentation, because if you’ve ever attended an event with me, you know I’m an “off-the-cuff” girl and like to let the audience and their questions about a topic steer our conversation). I thought it would be helpful to share here on the Raleighwood blog, too – for everyone’s benefit!

Talking Points:

Slide 3 – The AMA (American Marketing Association) board is comprised of working marketing professionals, so I feel this definition more accurately describes the business of marketing than the typical dictionary definition.

Slide 5 – As overused as the phrase “social media is a two-way conversation” is, it’s true! Businesses that only promote their businesses, but don’t take the opportunity to engage with their audience, are not going to benefit from the time and effort required to nurture this form of communication.

Slide 6 – BIG takeaway: DO NOT MAKE A PERSONAL PROFILE FOR YOUR BUSINESS. Make a PAGE. There is a difference. Signup at facebook.com/pages. Have a personal profile so you can understand how it works from the personal user perspective, but create a page for your business/brand/organization. A vanity URL is a short, personalized URL like http://www.facebook.com/raleighwood – this is the same as telling people what your website address is exactly so they can come right to you instead of telling them to “google you”, where your competitors could snatch up their attention, instead.

Slide 8 – Remember that twitter is a unique network in itself. You don’t want to have to Twitter profile for your brand and only populate it through your facebook activity. You won’t get very many followers if you’re not offering unique information to that audience separately. You’ll also be “blind” to the responses you get on Twitter if you never actually use twitter to engage your audience there, as well. (IE: They’re not going to go to your facebook page to leave you a comment, they’re going to do it on twitter and you will likely miss it.)

Slides 10 and 11 – I LOVE iContact.com for an email service provider. They are local to Durham, NC – as is Bronto.com. MailChimp.com is free as long as your list is under 1,000 subscribers.

Slide 12AllFacebook.com and Mashable.com are two nice resources for staying up to date on social media happenings and changes. They can be overwhelming due to the frequency of their content and updates, so I just check in once a month or so 🙂

Have any questions about this event? Feel free to ask! I hope to see you at the next Shop Local Raleigh seminar and will be sure to post details here when that event is confirmed!

Cheers,
Lisa

Free Advice: Don’t Abuse Your Email List!

Four of the five local retailers that emailed me yesterday, on Thanksgiving, about their Black Friday and holiday weekend sales and promotions sent me the same email again today. That’s eight emails, from the same four retailers, within 24 hours.

Now, that may not seem like a whole lot, but when I deleted 50 more emails that had arrived from non-local retailers between midnight last night and 10am this morning, you can see how the competition for my attention as a consumer gets fierce!

I’m email savvy enough to use a dedicated email address for my lists subscriptions. One that I don’t require myself to check once per day and one that is certainly not connected to my Blackberry. Most consumers are not this dedicated, however. So when their email inbox becomes overwhelming, they start clicking on “unsubscribe”. And once they’re gone, they’re likely not coming back!

I’m going to just put this out there. Email publishers who email frequently, about the same topic, almost always see an uptick in unsubscribes when they took a quick look at their email marketing statistics. Oh no! That’s exactly the opposite of what they want to see happen – and quite unfortunate, too.

So remember the golden rules of email marketing: make it relevant, keep it valuable, and don’t overdo it! I also recommend analyzing your past email marketing campaigns to find out what really works for your audience. Think Tuesday is the best day of the week to send email marketing out to customers or email list subscribers? Think again!

Just because Tuesday at 10:00am seems to be the popular “buzz time” for email distribution among marketing types, I have personally audited many of my clients’ email marketing campaigns and found that each have their own personalities. And many times, the emails they’ve sent on other days of the week have significantly higher open rates. Why could that be? Again, you’re competing for your audience’s attention. Plus, your target demographic may have unique behavioral characteristics. (Teachers work from 7:00am until 4:00pm, bartenders work from 6:00pm until 3:00am… do you think they will be checking their email at the same time?)

If everyone sends emails on the same day, you better have the best subject line among the bunch. And that, is a whole ‘nother topic of discussion!

Want to discuss the analytic side of email marketing? Drop me a note and let’s talk shop! Not using an email service provider so that you can analyze your email marketing performance? Stop what you’re doing right now and send me an email. We have got to get you on the path to making your email marketing work for you! 😉

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Link Shorteners

I posted this update to my twitter/facebook profiles this morning, but thought it was relevant enough for a blog post.

Pet Peeve: Email & other publications using shortened links. It’s fine for twitter, but otherwise, I want to know where you’re sending me.

Here are my views on using link shorteners/url shorteners in your marcoms (marketing communications).

The Good: URL shortening is used to reduce the number of characters in any web link – most commonly used to fit a link and its related commentary/description within Twitter’s 140 character limit. TweetDeck, a popular desktop Twitter application previews the link’s actual destination when clicked. TinyURL (a free url shortening service) offers a preview so you can decide whether to continue to the link’s destination or not (although it does require enabling and the use of cookies).

The Bad: Bit.ly, another popular link shortener, does not appear to have a prominent preview tool. From a professional standpoint, it does look appealing though because you can create an account and track the number of clicks your links get, etc.

The Ugly: The smart computer user needs to know where they are being directed on the internet! A lot of nasty viruses and malware are running around out there – and no one wants to deal with that.

While I appreciate the value of link shortening for twitter updates, I prefer not to see them on facebook, in emails, and even more so in online publications, blog posts, and articles. If not for the safety factor, there’s the other reason that when I’m reading real estate updates or marketing updates, I’ve probably already read the article on Realtor.org or Mashable.com that you are linking to. There’s no reason for me to click though to something I’ve already read!

So please – don’t waste my time or leave me exposed to security risks when you’re publishing links online 🙂

If anyone has any tips on best practices you’ve experienced for using and sharing web links using link shortening, please pass them along! I’d love to share them here.

But Target, I Didn’t Buy Anything… I Swear!

I thought it was fairly interesting that I received an email from Target.com this morning with the subject line, “Thoughts on what you bought? Write a review.”

I thought to myself, “When did you buy something online?” (Because I haven’t.)

And then I thought to myself, “Are they now emailing me after I buy in store?” (And then I realized they don’t have any sort of loyalty tracking cards (like Best Buy’s Reward Zone), and I don’t have a Target credit card, so that couldn’t be it, either.

Inside the email there was a graphic encouraging me to write a review and a list below of some of my “latest buys”. Unfortunately, it was blank… because I said before, I haven’t made any online purchases.

While I think this is a GREAT email campaign to send a few weeks after an online purchase (giving the customer time to receive and use their purchased items), it really isn’t effective when there is no purchase made to back it up.

I, as a review-reading consumer, definitely don’t want customers writing review for products that they haven’t given any thoughtful use to personally – and I can’t imagine Target does either if they value the quality of their peer review system.

Quick and Dirty Tip: Email Marketing "Reply-To" Email Address

If your email marketing provider (Constant Contact, Fishbowl, Emma, or – our Raleighwood Media Group exclusive email marketing provideriContact.com) does not provide an opportunity to specify your “Reply-To” email address, you should be dumping them immediately for one who does.

I personally can attest that iContact.com does let you customize this very important part of your marketing emails. Never, never, never does a client email go out that does not have a “Reply-To” email address set up as part of their campaign.

Why is this so important, you may ask?

Habit – Because the “reply” function has become the ingrained way in all of us to respond to an email. I mean… it just kind of makes sense, right?

I, for one, am highly likely to hit “reply” in a heart beat, but I may not be paying the closest attention as to where that email message is going. Unfortunately, messages I send in response to commercial email often “bounce back” since the message got sent to an email address that didn’t actually exist. And if I’m doing it, I know others are, too.

Ease of Use – If you are encouraging your customers to contact you by email at any point in your marketing, chances are the “reply” function is going to be the easiest way for them to do so. As email users, we have become accustomed to the ability to hit reply and correspond in return to our original emailer. If your email marketing service does not allow you to set your own email address as the “Reply to” address, they are taking away your ability to communicate as we’ve all become accustomed to.

Keep It Simple, Simon! – As one of my favorite clients (Mandy, owner of Swagger Gifts) will tell you, you must make participation and communication between customer and business EASY and CLEAR AS DAY, or people will screw it up. GUARANTEED.

Communication is Key – It could tarnish your reputation, really! If the reply aimed at you happens to end up in the black hole of emails (ie: some automated email address that your email marketing company uses) instead of getting directly to you, you run the serious risk of looking to your audience as the type of business or individual that ignores, or doesn’t return, email inquiries. No self-respecting business or emailer wants to be “that guy”, right?

Questions? Feel free to ask!

"It’s 2009, We Know What to Do at the Beep"

This is funny, and yet legitimate, at the same time.

Cell phone users, send a message
David Pogue, NY Times

I’ve been ranting lately about one particularly blatant money-grab by U.S. cell phone carriers: the mandatory 15-second voicemail instructions.

Suppose you call my cell to leave me a message. First you hear my own voice: “Hi, it’s David Pogue. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you” — and THEN you hear a 15-second canned carrier message.

These messages are outrageous for two reasons. First, they waste your time. Good heavens: It’s 2009. WE KNOW WHAT TO DO AT THE BEEP.

Second, we’re PAYING for these messages. These little 15-second waits add up — big-time. If Verizon’s 70 million customers leave or check messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year. That’s your money. And your time: three hours of your time a year, just sitting there listening to the same message over and over again every year.

Let’s push back, and hard. We want those time-wasting, money-leaking messages eliminated, or at least made optional.


Read the full article here and if you’re so inclined (like I am), send your carrier a little note and let them know that there is in fact, some merit to this argument.

After all, like David says, it is YOUR time and money.